


And It Is Won

by guyi (yujael)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, war time story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujael/pseuds/guyi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man with three wars to put behind him, and another who can't deal the final blow. Odd. But somewhere deep underneath it all, relief; the weightlessness of their escape.</p><p>Sequel to This Is War, but can stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And It Is Won

The prisoner doesn't speak to him. At the beginning, it was because he was too weak, but now it's like they might as well have sewn his lips shut along with his wounds. Other prisoners spit and curse at him when he passes by to hand out weird tasting water and food, but this one just glares at him – and not even because the food is shitty.

Ray knows the prisoner hates him, despises him, even, because when it all came down to it, Ray was the coward. He was the one in red armour who couldn't bring his sword down, and instead damned this man to be executed in the empire's capital with all the others who wore ochre armour.

The prisoner was ready to die, but Ray had only actually been in a few of the war's last battles. All the fatal blows he'd dealt were quick to pass, gone before he could think about them. But then they stormed the city and he faltered, and the prisoner hates him now more than anyone else. 

He doesn't know what happened to the body of his comrade, he thinks as he hands the silent prisoner his water. Now he kind of wishes he knew. He kind of wishes that he knew if that man's death was quick.

\--

General Heyman doesn't get any sleep from what Ray can tell, but somehow he almost looks like he hasn't aged a day over thirty. Almost, of course, because General Heyman has that familiar look in his eyes. This wasn't his first war, an it probably won't be his last. He's spilled a lot more blood than Ray has. 

He calls Ray to his tent every couple of days for reports, because Ray spends the most time around the captives. He got shunned into the responsibility by the other soldiers, the ones who wouldn't have hesitated to cut an enemy's head off. They call him a coward, but Ray's not sure if it's entirely accurate. They snap to attention and go deathly silent when the General so much as glances at them, and Ray knows they're afraid of pissing him off. Most of the army is, but he just... isn't. He stands and gives his report and General Heyman only gives him a tired look through the entire process.

“Where do you hail from?” The General asks him one day after he stammers past the first half of his report – two attempted escapes and one death by infection. A very nasty infection which has probably spread to other prisoners. 

Ray answers the question quickly. “I was raised in the city, sir; south range region.”

Heyman nods.“That's far for the empire to call. There's almost no point to your being here, you know.”

“I didn't call for the reinforcements,” Ray replies. It slips out accidentally, and he promptly snaps onto the end, “Sir.”

Heyman smirks, and for a second Ray thinks he's going to get an extra hour or two of rounds of duty for that comment, but he doesn't. Then the General gives him the same weary expression as before, and for a long moment he simply studies Ray from across the tent. Finally, he sighs and says, “No, but at least you're loyal, I suppose. That's all for this report, then. You're dismissed.”

Ray nods and turns on his heel, exiting the tent as quickly as he can without making it look odd. He's confused; a loyal soldier would have carried out a kill that was right in front of him, which he did not do. He goes to his own tent and tries to think on it, but he can't come up with a good explanation. All he knows is that Joel Heyman is a general of the empire for a reason. Maybe somebody of Ray's rank is just too insignificant for him to dwell on what he does in battle.

At least they're going home.

\--

“You don't have to keep giving me that look,” he murmurs to the prisoner, leaving the bread and water at his feet. “I know you hate me a lot.”

The prisoner keeps glaring at him. He doesn't move while Ray's around, but he obviously eats and drinks eventually, since he's still alive. He doesn't speak, either, but Ray doesn't expect him to.

“I'd say give me some slack for sparing your life, but I know that's bullshit, too. I'd prefer a sword to the guillotine, too, I guess.”

The prisoner's glare actually intensifies, his eyes are slits, his lips curling back and revealing a couple chipped teeth. 

“Wrong thing to say, okay,” Ray says hurriedly, getting up off his knees and balancing on the balls of his feet instead. “I just, uh... I just want you to know...”

Sorry for not killing you? I wish I could stick a blade through you right now to make up for it? That doesn't make sense, but Ray doesn't know what else to do. He's scared to close his eyes sometimes, because he knows what will inevitably surface in the darkness. This hollow smile and dead eyes, the scratchy echo. Those last words that man spoke. He just wants it to go away, but he's not even sure that's possible now.

“Never mind,” he says, standing up, turning away from the prisoner. “Forget I said anything.”

\--

They join with another regiment of the empire's army as they make their way back to the capital. They bring more prisoners for Ray to look after, and there are now two generals in the camp. There's a weird kind of rivalry between Generals Pattillo and Heyman, so Ray's glad that he still only has to report to Heyman. 

The report is short; nobody tried to escape this time and nobody's dead. Some look like they might be planning a breakout, but they're surrounded by more than a hundred thousand men. No one is worried about an escape.

“What did you do in your first battle?” General Heyman asks him this time.

Ray kind of wants to say he did exactly what the empire called him to do, but that isn't entirely true. He did almost nothing in his first battle; he stood at the rear, where all he could reach were dead bodies, because the front lines were already doing a good job of overwhelming the king's men. He sighs inaudibly and says that out loud. 

Joel Heyman sits at a small table, a piece of parchment covered in drying ink before him. He leans over it on his elbows, chin resting on his clasped hands. “Then let me tell you this: Even the best men started out worse than that.”

Ray's surprised at that, curious as to Heyman's motives. “I'm not sure I follow you, sir.”

“Leaving a man alive is not a crime,” he says, and Ray finally understands.

“He hates me for it,” he says, remembers the harsh, dirt covered face of the prisoner. “Not because he's a prisoner, but because...”

And then the words catch in Ray's throat, because the memories are dragging him back to the bloody, burning street. He's looking down again on the man with the empty smile and the dead eyes. He holds his comrade in his lap, and through the red Ray sees their fingers intertwined. 

And he finally understands.

“They were going to die together,” he continues hoarsely, “and I took that away from him.” 

A frown comes across General Heyman's face. Some low ranking soldier's feeling guilty about robbing an enemy of his quick death, Ray thinks, of course he's frowning. But then Heyman surprises him again. 

“And by some miracle, he survived,” he murmurs, like he somehow understands everything Ray said. “This prisoner that you say hates you more than any other... He's no expense to anyone.”

“Are – are you telling me to go stick him with a blade right now?” 

“No, that's against code.” Heyman shakes his head. “We'd all like to die on our own terms, but of course he doesn't have that, either. Now, let me guess here; you look like you don't get much more sleep than I do, but it's not the fact that you've killed ten or twenty men, is it?”

Ray shakes his head slowly.

Joel Heyman continues quietly, almost softly, and he entire time it's like he's studying Ray again. “They say the empire's men are trained not to feel things like that... Maybe we're not as loyal as we like to think, then.”

“What do you...” Does he mean he...?

“That's enough for this report,” Heyman interrupts, leaning back and looking down at his letter. “And my ink is dry. You can go, now.”

Ray hesitates briefly. He wants to ask what Heyman means this time, but a dismissal is a dismissal. He nods and turns around, exiting the tent. He tries to figure it out on his own, asks himself why the General seems to speak only to him this way, why he sees the weariness in his eyes when even the other officers only see steel. 

But all he can think about are the words _Maybe we're not as loyal as we like to think_.

In the end, he's a man in red armour. Red like roses, he used to say before he really experienced war. Red like thorny roses.

\--

He has the same dream every night, the same nightmare since the battle. He feels the heat of in the air, the ashes that almost choke them. He's breathing it in, and then he's seeing the man in ochre armour on the ground, holding the lifeless body of his comrade. The man smiles up at him every time, his eyes dead, and his voice is what haunts him most. Now Ray knows why the general doesn't get any sleep.

But now there's another voice, one that isn't so terrifying. This one is tired, and when Ray wakes up there's a question sticking in his mind, squished in next to the fear. Something he never thought about before, because the empire called him to fight the king's men, and he did what he was ordered to do. Almost, anyway. He pays the price at night for that battle every single night. 

But that voice also gives him an answer, and Ray knows what to do when he wakes up this time.

\--

The prisoner regards him with the same dark expression as before when he approaches. He crouches down and looks the prisoner in the eye.

“There's something I want to... I need to say to you,” he starts quietly. The other captives are asleep and he's the only soldier here, and he plans to keep it that way. “I figured that since you already hate me as much as a living person could hate another – well, there's really not much to lose. I have nightmares of that battle every night. I don't say that because I think that'll make you think any better of me, or because I'm hoping you can relate somehow, but because you said something to me, and I've heard it again and again ever since.”

The prisoner doesn't reply; there isn't a single shift in even his expression.

“Its just – that's all there is,” Ray says, swallowing thickly. “It doesn't _stop_. I was ordered to take lives and I couldn't even give you death, and _I'm sorry_.”

That's what finally makes the prisoner respond. He lurches forward, pulling on the ropes tying him to the iron stake with hot rage clear on his face. Yet he still doesn't say a word, and Ray continues, reaching slowly for the knife hidden under his tunic. 

“You were ready for it, I know you were; you already knew coming in there that you were going to die and you were going to do it on your own terms.” He holds the knife in his hand between them, the sharp blade reflecting a tiny flame. The prisoner's eyes flicker to the blade, and his hands seem to tremble. The rope still has give, and Ray creeps forward. “And I know, man, I know nothing I say will make things better, but I'm not looking for forgiveness or anything. You were going to go down next to your friend, but –”

A sound finally passes the prisoner's lips, and it comes as he's lunging forward, taking the knife roughly with both hands. He shoves Ray onto his back, and his rope lets him move just far enough to pin Ray down with the blade at his neck.

“Shut up,” he hisses, his voice raw. “Just _shut the fuck up_ , you son of a bitch. Don't you fucking dare say you're sorry, not to _me_. You bastards came into _our_ land, burned _our_ homes, and murdered the people _we loved_ – and all you have to say is _sorry?_ ”

The words come out cracked and strained, and as Ray looks up at the prisoner's fiery eyes, he sees the burning street again, and he sees the dying man cradling his comrade in his lap, holding onto his beloved because they're going together. 

“I should _kill_ you,” the prisoner hisses, his face looming over Ray's. 

“I just...” Ray gulps, feels the cold steel against his skin. It doesn't sink down. “I just figured... everyone wants to die on their own terms, right?”

The prisoner stares down at him, his expression more dangerous than ever, but he still doesn't make a slice with the knife. His body trembles, and Ray can see the tension in his hands, but he doesn't move. Then, a few seconds later, he draws back ever so slightly, and Ray hears General Heyman again. _Maybe we're not as loyal as we like to think._

And then the prisoner, still clutching the dagger, draws his hands back and swings them downward again over Ray's head.

And for the first time since that final battle, Ray closes his eyes and hears nothing, sees nothing.

\--

It's still dark when he comes to, but he hears voices all around, and Joel Heyman is standing over him. 

“I knew you'd go right to the captives,” he says, waving a lamp slowly back and forth across Ray's vision. “You can hear me, right?”

Ray nods and turns his head to scan his surroundings. They're still in one of the captives' tents. “What – what happened?”

“Miracle man escaped,” Heyman answers, gesturing to the torn ropes on the ground. He doesn't sound terribly concerned about it, but he says it quietly so that the soldiers and captives around them can't hear. “Got himself loose and sneaked away. He probably hasn't gotten far yet.”

“Are people going after him?” Ray asks, remembering the sound of the prisoner's voice, the pure anger written in his face. 

Heyman shakes his head and helps Ray to sit up. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Not yet, I mean. You're our only witness to the event, as the other captives were sleeping. Can you stand?”

Ray touches the side of his head gingerly. There's a lump where he was hit, but there's no blood. “Yeah, I think I'll be fine.”

“Then let's move quickly, I want to be ready to move by the time Pattillo gets the news.” Heyman pulls him to his feet and keeps a firm hand on his elbow to steady him. “That way we can catch up faster.”

“Uh – we?” Another soldier offers Ray some water, and he drinks it gratefully. Heyman releases his arm after a few seconds, and quickly explains.

“I might be a general, but if there's a dangerous prisoner on the loose, Pattillo's going to want the best men on his trail. I already know he's probably going to look for any reason to send me out, and you're the only witness, so that's the bulk of the search party already.”

Just as he finishes his sentence, the shouts of soldiers outside the tent alert them to the presence of the other general, and Heyman glances outside to check.

“He's coming,” he reports, bending down and grabbing a small pack and short sword. “I got this for you. This is your blade, right?”

“Yeah,” Ray slings the pack over his shoulder and fumbles with his blade's sheath briefly. He straps it to his belt and then follows the General from the tent a few seconds later. As they move briskly through the camp, Ray sees a pack similar to his own beneath Heyman's cloak. He carefully shifts the weight of the contents in his, and he might have thought it to be full of standard inventory for a tracking mission once, but now he isn't so sure. 

\--

There are four of them tracking the prisoner. It's dark and the area is heavily wooded, but there is a clear path cutting through the trees, an old forest passage hardly used by travellers. Their lamp light reveals footprints, however, uneven steps and winding lines. The tracks of their prisoner. He moved quickly past this stretch, but they move faster, and it isn't long before they catch up.

They find him trying to hide in the underbrush. One of his wounds has reopened and he lies on the ground gasping through his fingers, and when they uncover his hiding place, he just glares at them all. Ray's dagger is still clutched in his other hand. 

“Nice work, men,” General Heyman says, holding his lamp up to illuminate everyone's faces. “You can return to camp now.”

The two other trackers look between each other, confused. When they ask if the General and Ray are staying here, Heyman fixes them with a steely expression. 

“Go report to General Pattillo that the prisoner has been found,” he says carefully, “but will not be returning tonight.”

That confuses the men even more, and they look to Ray, but he doesn't offer them anything. He feels almost as confused as them, but at the same time, something else is welling up in his chest. His heart beats faster, but he doesn't move. He stays, and watches as it happens. 

“All due respect, sir,” one man says. “But that's – it's against code; all prisoners who don't convert have to be taken to the capital –”

“–where they will be executed as capital punishment,” Heyman finishes. “Believe me, soldier, I am well aware of what code dictates. However, that being said, this prisoner will not be returning to the empire, and I will not order you to go more than once.”

He steps to the side as he speaks, placing himself between the men and Ray, who kneels next to the man on the ground. He shifts away from Ray, his expression a mix of wariness, curiosity, and anger, still. 

“That's – you're breaking code, sir,” the soldier says, holding his own lamp up higher, as if that would make Heyman understand his point. “The both of you.”

Heyman's expression doesn't change, but Ray feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Joel Heyman is a general of the empire for a reason, he reminds himself. He stares the men down, and his hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

“You know how code breakers are dealt with,” he says to the soldiers, “don't you?”

And that's when Ray truly realizes what he's doing, what he's about to do. A smart man would step away from the General, would join the others as they begin creeping back, because there is a _good_ reason Joel Heyman is General. But he still doesn't move, doesn't speak, because on the ground behind Heyman is the man who wants to die on his own terms. He is breaking code for this man, and just the knowledge of that nearly knocks the breath out of him.

It also gives him an odd sense of relief, but the reason why is something he can't decipher. 

The other men are only lightly armed. They didn't need full armour and weaponry for this mission, and so it only takes them a short moment to weigh their options and come to a decision. 

“You... you're really breaking code for this vermin?” One man asks. “He's a dead man already, a king's fool! You'll throw away everything for _this_?”

“I don't think I can explain neither myself, nor Ray, to you,” Joel replies. “I've heard of your names and seen you on the battle field, and that leads me to believe that this is beyond your understanding.”

“The empire will not accept code breakers in their ranks,” the soldier continues. “General Heyman, you know this. How can this prisoner be more important than the empire?”

“If what you say is correct, then I am no longer a man of the Imperial Army,” Joel retorts, and silence drops around them like a shroud. The soldiers stare in utter disbelief, and from his position on the ground next to the escaped prisoner, Ray sees Joel draw his sword an inch from its sheath. The soldiers flinch. “So are you going to challenge me, or do I now have to scare you back to the camp? Tell General Pattillo what you want, but you and I both know how this will end up if you don't go – _now_.”

The soldiers already look half terrified. They step back, casting incredulous looks at the three men before them, and then, without another word, they turn on their heels and run. Ray watches them go, falling out of sight quickly, and then he turns his attention to the king's man leaning against a tree trunk.

His breathing is steadier, and his wounds don't seem to be bleeding badly, but Ray can tell he's still pretty weak. He still has a faint glare on his brow, but now there's something else along with it.

“Why'd you do that?” He asks as Joel also turns to face him, his hand leaving his blade. “You just... you just fucking deserted your own goddamn army, and for what?”

“Are you saying you'd like to go back to the camp?” Joel asks him in return.

“I didn't say that,” the man snaps. He braces himself against the tree and slowly gets to his feet. “You're imperial soldiers, or you were, and I'm some dead guy. Do you not see something wrong with that? What the hell made you think this was a good idea? Helping someone like me?”

Joel frowns, like he's seriously never really considered his actions. He watches the man steady himself for a few seconds, and then turns his gaze toward Ray, who's only half wondering the same thing. 

He thought Joel had been helping _him_ accomplish something against the empire's code, and even then he still didn't fully understand why he would do that. But now he's standing next to a fugitive and an ex-general, and hardly anything makes sense. Joel keeps staring at him, his expression unreadable, and then he looks back to the escapee and says, “I don't know.”

“You don't know.” The man repeats. “You just left your army, you declared yourself a fucking code breaker, and _you don't know why_?”

Ray watches as Joel looks to the ground and blinks slowly, and he waits for the answer, waits for something to bring clarity to this situation. _Maybe we aren't as loyal as we like to think_ , he said. What made him say that, though? Why was it so... _easy_ to do what they just did?

The king's man steps away from the tree, and when Joel doesn't respond, he takes a second step, and then another. He staggers to the path again, and only then does Joel speak.

“This path will eventually run alongside the river,” he says, his voice clear in the dark. The injured man only pauses for a split second. “I understand that it isn't anything like what you planned, or what you wanted in the first place, but the empire will not chase the current for a body which is of no expense to them.”

The man pauses again, as if he's waiting for them to catch up. “It doesn't matter,” he replies. “Your bloody empire is not going to be who decides my death.”

Joel glances down at his hands, as if he can literally see the stains on his skin, and then he steps onto the path again as well, and Ray hardly even thinks about it as he also follows the dying man to the river.

To every man his own terms, he thinks. He and Joel are still wearing the armour of the empire as they follow this king's man. Red like the blood of the beloved, red like thorny roses.

\--

General Pattillo might have sent more men if it were just Ray, but Joel is an entirely different matter, a threat on a whole new scale. There's also the river, and the General probably knows that any effort made to capture the code breakers will probably be useless when they can swim with the current. When Ray thinks about it, he knows that's the only reason they've gotten this far, and that there must have been some kind of planning in this. It couldn't be coincidental. 

_Maybe we're not as loyal as we like to think_.

The king's man stands in the river as the sunlight begins to peek over the horizon. The water comes to his knees and his hands are empty now, and his head is tilted up as he talks to the disappearing stars. Ray strains to hear from the riverbank, but he can't catch anything but murmurs. Is he praying?

Perhaps. The sound of rushing water reminds Ray of the sound of raging fires, and he sees the bloody street once more. He sees the dying men, and he sees one holding his lover's hand even though their skin is slick with blood. Maybe he prays now to meet his comrade's soul in the afterlife. And then finally, Ray hopes, finally he'll find some peace of mind again. 

It's been more than two months since that final battle, and every night since, Ray has heard that echo in his sleep, has seen that smile and those dead eyes when he closes his own. _See you in hell,_ he said, _see you in hell_. But now, Ray hopes that this will be enough for him. Every man should die on his own terms, if only so they won't haunt the living.

The cracking voice of the king's man cut through Ray's reverie as he finally speaks in more than a whisper, and Ray snaps back to the river, to the rising sun and the dying man.

“We promised to die together,” he says, although Ray doesn't know to whom, and as he speaks, he steps further into the river, and further again. “With or without glory, we were going to die together. I'm sorry, Gavin, I'm so sorry that I couldn't make it then.”

And he says something else, but it's lost in the rush of the water as it finally becomes too strong for him to walk in, as it pulls him under. Ray lurches forward, tries to see the man's head rise up anywhere, but Joel's hand lands on his shoulder, preventing him from getting any closer. And just like that, he thinks, with an empty feeling in his chest. Just like that...

Joel's hand is firm on his shoulder, squeezing gently as Ray still tries to lean forward, to see down to the bend. He watches the current, but there's nothing on the surface but bubbles and foam. Just like that, the king's man is gone. He and Joel are alone on the bank now, with nothing but red armour, stained blades, and packs of things definitely not for a tracking mission. 

“Why did we do that?” He asks, still staring at the river. They're fugitives now, he realizes. The empire isn't after them now, but they will be soon enough. They just broke code for a king's man who was dead before they even met him, and now the gods only know when they'll ever see home again. “I don't know why...”

“Maybe we do,” Joel says quietly, “but we just don't know what to do with it.”

Ray looks up at him, curious. “What do you mean?”

Joel closes his eyes for a moment, and then he looks down at his hands again. “How many men have you killed, Ray?”

“I don't... less than twenty, probably.”

“I lost count so long ago,” Joel answers in return with a mournful tone. “Look at my hands and you'll see dirt and sweat, but I see blood. Three wars and too many death to count. The best soldiers start out like you, Ray, and then they end up like me.”

_At least you're loyal, I suppose._

_Leaving a man alive is not a crime_. 

_We'd all like to die on our own terms_.

So what do they do, then, when there are no orders for them to follow, no code? How is this going to end?

“Are we still soldiers?” Ray asks cautiously. He takes one of Joel's hands and wipes the grime away with his sleeve.

Joel looks out over the water, his expression contemplative. A man with three wars to put behind him, and another who can't deal the final blow. Odd. But somewhere deep underneath it all, relief; the weightlessness of their escape. A sense of freedom that the empire suppressed long ago.

“Dropping our blades won't get rid of the things we've done,” Joel finally replies. “But if we are hunted for something that shouldn't even be a crime, then I might even be glad to say that I am not the empire's man.”

Ray watches the river, too, listens to the sound of the rapids downstream. Somewhere, the king's man is losing his last breath, and if anyone hears what his last words might be, they're already dead.

“I think I am, too.”


End file.
